In the prior art, deep source and drain (deep source/drain) contact junctions are desirable to allow silicidation of the source and drain. Silicidation is the process of combining silicon with a metal such as titanium forming titanium silicide TiSi.sub.2. Silicides provide the advantages of being stable during contact with polysilicon and having a lower RC time delay than silicon. A lower RC time delay is important in high speed circuits. In opposition, shallow source and drain (source/drain) extensions are desirable to provide immunity to the "short-channel effect". One cause for the short-channel effect is that as MOSFET devices are made with shorter gate lengths, the depletion layer widths of the source and drain junction become comparable to channel length, resulting in punch-through, where the gate loses control of the current. To obtain the benefits from deep source and drain contact junctions and shallow source/drain extensions the raised (or elevated) source/drain structure is used.
In the prior art, shallow source and drain extensions are first formed on a substrate. Pure Silicon (Si) selective epitaxy growth (SEG) is then used to form an elevated source and an elevated drain (elevated source/drain). The selective Si epitaxy process done in the prior art is a high temperature (&gt;900.degree. C.) process. This high temperature process causes further diffusion of the source/drain extensions making the source/drain extensions deep, which degrades transistor short channel performance.
The prior art also teaches the use of Silicon Germanium (SiGe) selective epitaxy growth (SEG) to form raised source/drain, using a 5-10% Germanium (Ge) concentration. This process uses a temperature that is 100-200.degree. C. lower than the temperature used in the pure Si selective epitaxy growth, allowing for shallow source/drain extensions. In addition, SiGe provides improved epitaxy selectivity between Silicon and dielectric in the trench isolation and spacer region. A problem with the use of SiGe selective epitaxy growth is that a 5-10% concentration of Ge in the raised source/drain region makes the silicidation of the raised source/drain difficult.